I’m starting something new, and I don’t know what to do.

The second trimester of my Sophomore in college, I enrolled in (and proceeded to fail) Econ 101—the first non-medical related course I had ever taken in my life. Up until that point, everything I had done was biology, chemistry, physics, and whatever else would make me look like the perfect pre-med student for all the top colleges to fawn over. With a neonatologist mother, two pre-med older sisters (now one is a retinal surgeon and the other a radiation oncologist), and multiple other physicians in the family, I had never even been exposed to anything except medicine.

And I couldn’t say I loved it.

So when I finally stood on my own and decided that I would try a different major, I was scared.  I had no clue what to do.  It was the first time I had no guidance, no template, no pre-trodden path where the next several steps were obvious.  Realizing you have the freedom to choose how you spend your time is as exhilarating as is terrifying.

I have the same feeling right now as I step into a new endeavor.  For more than 15 years, as I’ve been building my career and expertise within healthcare management and operations. I’ve also been channeling my creative side through social media.  During the weekdays, I’m the quintessential corporate and/or startup professional.  Late at night and some weekends, I express my ideas and [somewhat] artistic vision through written posts, pictures, and video.  

When I joined Instagram in 2012, all I wanted to do was provide an alternative to the few options of how black women were depicted back then: it was either the Hot Body Baddie or the Consummate Professional. There was little to no in between. Before I decided to open my account to the public, I was constantly wondering why I didn’t see many professionals who were willing to be goofy, vulnerable, and otherwise “unserious.”  Eventually, I decided to be the person I wanted to see: serious with formal work, but comfortable being relaxed, awkward, or generally jovial about most things.

It’s been a tricky balance, and a lot of the time it hasn’t been balanced at all.  Most of the hours during days when I’m creating content have felt like play, but also like work. I love the process of trying to approximate the vision I’ve seen in my head with a real-world recreation.  It’s like solving a jigsaw puzzle.  The game feels great when the pieces come together, but it feels like a waste of precious time since the purpose is primarily to entertain.

Now, after 9 years of creating, I’m finally beginning to lean into it as a way to both scratch my itch to create and help other professionals who are looking for a different path.  Through my research into the history and future of work over the past few years, I’ve realized that there is no single way to be a high-value professional. Most importantly, we each get to define what we categorize as work and how we perform it.  

Presently, it feels like healthcare is my passion and I will likely always continue my professional work and goals in that space, but I’m also curious about applying my degrees and experiences to help other professionals realize their own path and goals.  It’s taken me all these years to accept that I can do both.  Being professionals isn’t at war with being a creative.  It doesn’t have to be one or the other.

The latter part of this year will be spent figuring out what this means, because honestly, I don’t know.  

The truth is that I don’t know how to do a lot of what I’m trying to do right now.

I know I love creating.

I love teaching. 

I love researching and understanding dynamics around the future of work.

What I don’t know is how to build an online course that truly impacts people’s lives.

I don’t know how to mix executive level teaching with lighthearted fun on video.

I don’t know how to break into a field of research that I wasn’t formally trained in.

And I definitely don’t know how to do all this while speeding forward full-throttle with my healthcare work.

But just like every inquisitive person who has come before me, I’m going to try, clinging on to the oscillating hope that I’ll figure it out.